Switching it up in the U.S. Supreme Court after a term where major issues involving guns and the death penalty were a regular chain of events. Now, according to staff writer Marcia Coyle at National Law Journal,  it appears that this term around, the issues are going to be a little less heated. Topics such as the environment, business, injured consumers, job bias victims, and the law enforcement are what matters most.

So, will this create a less stressful courtroom? She says yes, I say no.

We shall soon see…

And after the justices hold their summer conference meeting on Sept. 29 where they generally add cases from more than a thousand filed during the summer months, things may take a change and death penalty cases could appear yet again.

Still, for some, issues like the environment are worth dying over.

The bottom line is that when it comes to the court of law, nothing is drama-free.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved, without amendment, a bill to allow convicted military members to petition the U.S. Supreme Court for review of their cases even if the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) has denied review or a petition for extraordinary relief.

 Going to the full Senate, the bill, which is considered an unfair situation by the American Bar Association, the Military Officers Association of America and others, is about to change course after two decades.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Striking down a 32-year ban on private possession of handguns in Washington, D.C. was the US Supreme Court, basing their decision on the Second Amendment, which guarantees the right to “keep and bear arms.” Thus, the government cannot ban citizens from owning a gun in their own home for protection.

Also invalidated were two other strict gun-control measures that required guns be unloaded and secured with a trigger lock.

“We hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion.

Under any standards of scrutiny that we have applied to enumerated constitutional rights, banning from the home the most preferred firearm in the nation to keep and use for protection of one’s home and family would fail constitutional muster,” wrote Scalia.

Will this lead to more deaths resulting from gunfire? Some tend to think so.

In my opinion, however, I say, no. Despite laws preventing handguns, if someone wants a gun for devious reasons, they’ll get it. And while there is also the concern that accidents can happen regarding children and guns, children run the risk of drowning in a pool or playing with the knife drawer, too. Being responsible when owning a firearm is key. And just as an accident can happen, a crime in the home can occur and without protection, someone could get badly hurt and/or killed. When it comes to the law, there is always a lawyer on either side of the fence who can show you the negatives and pluses of both. In this particular case, I believe that both sides will equal out. Thus, allowing handguns won’t result in a bang, bang epidemic. Don’t worry, everything will remain the same.

Popularity: 4% [?]

The US Supreme Court invalidated part of a Louisiana statute that made aggravated assault against a child under 12 a capital offense. In a 5-4 ruling, it has been considered “constitutionally impermissible” for a person-on-person violent crime that does not result in the death of a victim. The ruling results from the Kennedy v. Louisiana case.

As we all know (consciously or subconsciously), the courtroom is a scary place, resembling a Vegas casino. How you walk out of there after a night of gambling partially depends on how well each player plays the game and the rest of it depends on luck. Each case is different and while murderers can get five seconds, five years, six years (??), embezzlement can land someone in the big house for fifteen plus. Like I said, it all depends. What seems to remain a constant, however, is the law’s misrepresentation of children. Murder an adult,  you run the risk of the death sentence. Murder a child, the cards aren’t nearly as stacked up against you.

And what about rape? Statistically, one pedophile will rape 300 children. Factually, pedophiles, as stated in the American Psychological Association’s DSM IV will never be able to stop. Therefore, probation and rehabilitation don’t logically apply to a child molester/rapist. But in the court of law they definitely do, illogically.

What about the victim? Children who are raped suffer irreversible damages that alter their entire lives in a negative way. Recovery is life-long and a highly painful process. The debate now is when and if a child molester stands in front of the court of law, is the death sentence a possibility?

With murder, it is possible. Child rape, on the other hand, now that’s a whole other story. Why? Because murder is permanent, thus, viewed as more heinous. However, so are the after-affects resulting from a rape. Life is taken away just as innocence is taken away. Family members forever mourn their loved one who was killed and family members mourn the child they knew before the rape occurred. And without any way of doing longitudinal studies on what the young rape victims become versus what they would have become had the rape never happened, the rape case loses validity. Juvenile halls, prisons, rehabs, mental hospitals and other crisis centers; however, are filled with people who were sexually victimized as children — a slow death in some ways, wouldn’t you say?

The moral of this story is that the death sentence should be an option in Louisiana, not just for the murderers who stand in front of a judge but for the rapists of children, as well.

According to Justice Anthony Kennedy, “the death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child.”

It began over the case against Patrick Kennedy, who was convicted and sentenced to die for raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter in 1998. According to medical reports, her injuries were extensive and severe. Surgery was required to stop the bleeding.

While the young girl will forever live with the terrible memories of what she had endured, her rapist will no longer pay the ultimate price for it nor shall any other child rapist in Louisiana.

“The incongruity between the crime of child rape and the harshness of the death penalty poses risks of over-punishment and counsels against a constitutional ruling that the death penalty can be expanded to include this offense,” wrote Justice Kennedy.

Ben Cohen of the Capital Appeals Project in Louisiana, who also worked on the rapist’s case for years, stated that in addition to his former client, a second man, Richard Davis, was also on death row in Louisiana for child rape but will now be resentenced.

Popularity: 11% [?]